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iamgianluca t1_j0rzhyp wrote

It exists already: https://sigmoid.social/

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MardiFoufs t1_j0tahyg wrote

Why are all the front page posts about musk and twitter? What's the point then? If I wanted to use twitter, I'd log on twitter

It looks exactly like those reddit alternatives like voat or whatever where people go there to rant about a platform they don't like and eventually move on when they realize they are still alone there. You can even scroll down like 3 posts deep to see talk about fascism because.. they were banned from twitter?

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regalalgorithm t1_j0tie0w wrote

What you are seeing is the explore tab, which is all of Mastodon, not just sigmoid.social. Sigmoid Social content is over at the local timeline. There is some chatter about it on there too, but it's not really the main thing, here are some examples of recent posts:

>i was so sleepy i ended up falling asleep after extra time and I was so confused when I woke up and each side had an additional goal and France lost the world cup

>Fourier Sensitivity and Regularization of Computer Vision Models https://openreview.net/forum?id=VmTYgjYloM

>Some like to think that we're a trillion data points away from general artificial intelligence. Some like to think that we're some hundreds or thousands of algorithms away. I like to think that we're only several truly profound insights away. But these aren't mutually exclusive.

>The primary reason we don't yet see current AI as sentient is because there is no "goal" module. Once AI is infused with something that makes it "want", then it will appear very sentient to us.

Also, a TON of people migrated to Mastodon today due to Twitter drama, so it makes sense there is a lot of discussion about it.

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MardiFoufs t1_j0u5631 wrote

Ahhh ok now that makes sense!! I'll stick to the local posts!

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mileseverett t1_j0w217a wrote

There is a tonne of garbage posts on the local section, as well as out of order threads. While I hate how twitter is going, Mastadon is garbage imo

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IDe- t1_j0wgjqo wrote

If you search it with hashtags you'll get a lot more relevant/topical posts (e.g. https://sigmoid.social/tags/nlproc). The local timeline may be full of ML people, but not everything ML people post is about ML. If you want a curated feed you'll have to create that yourself just like on any other SNS.

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regalalgorithm t1_j0ww7iy wrote

The way Mastodon does threads is kind of annoying yeah. But Twitter is way buggier than Mastodon. And if you think ML/AI Twitter didn't post "garbage" on Twitter, I have some news for you... It's an inclusive server, anyone interested in AI can join and we don't force anyone to only post about AI.

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Felice_rdt t1_j0tbola wrote

Because it's basically a site where everyone who hates Elon Musk's Twitter has flocked to. I think it's only natural that the conversation there would be about hating Elon Musk's Twitter.

I'm sure the same was (and might still be) true of Gab or Truth or any of the other splinter sites that have gained popularity with a group of angry Twitter expats in the past.

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Ronny_Jotten t1_j0tnech wrote

It's not a "site" though. There are many different Mastodon servers, and you can join the one you like. They do carry message from other servers, but you don't have to look at them, you can just stay on the local server.

Look at the sidebar on the right, and click on "local" instead of "federated" or "explore". It's 90% about ML and AI.

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Felice_rdt t1_j0ubo7b wrote

Yeah yeah. I know. Wrong choice of words. Call it a network if you like, or a federation. Whatever. I'm pretty sure you knew what I meant.

My advice to you, take it or leave it: Don't be the "well, actually" guy. Nobody likes the "well, actually" guy.

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Ronny_Jotten t1_j0vkk1z wrote

Not just nitpicking about "site" vs "federation". Your whole statement wrongly characterizes what Sigmoid is.

If you go to the front page of Reddit, you'll also see a bunch of stuff about Musk and Twitter, plus Amber Heard, other pointless gossip, clickbait, and videos of people falling down. That tells you literally nothing about the ML community here.

The reason the person to whom you're responding saw the comments about Musk on Sigmoid is because they were looking at the wrong page (maybe Sigmoid should make "Local" the landing page), not because it's a group of angry Twitter expats.

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MardiFoufs t1_j0tcbll wrote

Yeah and I get that, honestly it's totally fine that they can have their own platform. But it seems like it won't be very conductive to discussion about machine learning lol. Maybe in a few months, but by then I might as well stick to twitter where discussion is happening now.

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Felice_rdt t1_j0tcrj8 wrote

Yeah I've had a similar problem with retro gamedev stuff. Half of it is on twitter and half on Mastodon. I suspect it'll go full Mastodon in the end.

Honestly I actually like Mastodon better myself so far, doubtful as I was at the outset. I just don't think it'll get mass adoption outside of techies.

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mrdrozdov t1_j0u8p95 wrote

Because that’s the front page of everything right now lol

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cyborgsnowflake t1_j0u5gwc wrote

They laughed when all of the conservatives talked about the chilling effects of the Big Tech monopoly on speech platforms and now its suddenly the most important thing in the world to them. lol.

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Cheap_Meeting t1_j0s0eiq wrote

I tried using it but the user interface is so much worse than Twitter. Any tips?

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iamgianluca t1_j0s28aj wrote

The official mobile app is not the best. I’m using Metatext instead, but there are many to choose from.

In terms of the UX I find it quite similar — you just have more control over what you see in your feed, as you can switch from “home”, “local” and “federated” timelines.

The main difference compared to Twitter, IMHO, is that there are fewer replies per thread. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

I hope that over time the community converges to one location instead of being split between Twitter and Mastodon.

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Richtong t1_j0tnsba wrote

Sigmoid social is awesome (and on Reddit I’m even allowed to say it :-)

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killver t1_j0txqyl wrote

Yeah, no thanks.

We need something better :/

Or Twitter turnaround, which is possible.

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csreid t1_j0vqr3p wrote

I like the idea of something built on mastodon, or at least something that can interop with it. For some reason I'm feeling very wary about siloing all my social media into something that can be bought and completely burned down.

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regalalgorithm t1_j0x25ax wrote

For those considering a move to sigmoid.social, some info:

  • It is run/administered by The Gradient (thegradient.pub). Disclaimer - I am part of the team.
  • It has about 5500 active users currently, including some notable folks like Karpathy and AK
  • It is funded by users on Patreon
  • There is a detailed code of conduct on the about page.

Final note: I don't think it's a 1-1 replacement for Twitter. Twitter's Algorithmic feed is great for encouraging discovery of new stuff and seeing new memes. Mastodon's smaller scale and non algorithmic feed encourages a more community vibe with everyone's voice having equal weight. It's possible to use both (which I do - following the drama on Twitter is just too addictive).

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